One of the days I arrived to the Leon Morane flying club earlier than Gilles. In France, most people start working at 09:00, and driving earlier gave less time on the road, I found out. As a club member, I had access to the house, so I made myself a cup of coffee and used the time to prepare for the flight.
Soon Gilles was also there, arriving on his motorcycle called “Interceptor” – I thought it was funny, taking into consideration Gilles’ former military background as a fighter pilot in the French Air Force.
As every morning, we started from briefing:
Slowly, I was getting used to those views of unimaginary beauty:
That day the weather in the mountains was really good, and Gilles prepared a nice surprise – landing in Barèges, one of the most difficult aerodromes in the area. Can you see the airstrip on the photo below? It is just in front of us, on final:
When I saw Barèges close by, while we were doing the pre-landing procedure, I just tightened my seat belt. I’ve never seen such a steep runway slope before:
Of course, it was Gilles who did the landing, and I had no doubts in my instructor, but it was a bit nerve-racking for the beginner like me. On right base:
Gilles did a perfect landing! I admired him so much!
Barèges airfield lies at 5,400 feet. It is 200 metres long and with 21% gradient of slope. Gilles told me, when a flight instructor from a nearby area is to get a mountain rating, (s)he has to land there, in order to prove the skills.
The same as on any other mountain airstrip, one cannot see the whole runway from the start position. You are lucky, if you can see the first 50 metres. Normally we’d go a bit down to check whether any animals had made their way to the runway – because then you’d have to wait for them to leave.
Often, there are no centerlines on the mountain airfields, and the surface is rough. You can never see the whole runway, neither standing on the top nor from the bottom of it.
Barèges must be a dangerous place – even cows die there occasionally:
After spending some time on the slopes of Barèges, Gilles and I took off and did landings on other airfields.
The town of Marciac, known for its annual jazz festival. Many prestigious artists performed in Marciac – Ray Charles, Michel Petrucciani, Dianne Reeves, just to name a few.
The fortified town of Marciac was founded in the 12th-13th century. On the picture above you can see the market square in the centre – it is still used for markets.
Pic du Midi de Bigorre (far center, behind the clouds) on our way back home:
We had a relatively long flying day, and I experienced new mountain airstrips, but Barèges was definetely the king of them all. And so was Gilles – my hero of mountain flying.